


Casually Cruel

by turnitup



Series: Hush [3]
Category: SEAL Team (TV)
Genre: Ash Spenser's A+ Parenting, Boys In Love, Dorks in Love, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, M/M, Scars
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-11
Updated: 2020-12-11
Packaged: 2021-03-10 22:49:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,212
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28014984
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/turnitup/pseuds/turnitup
Summary: Our scars tell the story of our lives.  Sometimes they’re stark tales of life-threatening catastrophes, but more often they’re just footnotes to the ordinary but bloody detours on the highway of life.
Relationships: Brock Reynolds/Clay Spenser
Series: Hush [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2041270
Comments: 3
Kudos: 43





	Casually Cruel

**Author's Note:**

> -TRIGGER WARNING -  
> This work contains references to self harm and child abuse. If this is offensive or triggering for you, please do not continue reading.

They were in the team room the first time Brock noticed - the lines and splotches and gashes that littered Clay's skin. 

His legs, arms and back were covered in scars. Browns and pinks and off-whites. So thick in places they were visibly raised from the skin. He never drew excess attention to them, never examined them, just changed and went on like they weren't even there. 

He was perched on the table next to Clay when he first acknowledged them - Brock pokes one stretching across his ankle with his toe, and Clay looks down. 

"Guess you'd never thought a Tier One operator would be so clumsy eh?" Clay snorted, turning his leg so Brock could see the rest mottled across his shins. 

Brock had a terrible thought forming. "You okay sunshine?"

Clay looked up, visibly surprised, before he shook his head with a laugh. "Course I am," He said, tugging on his shorts. "They're just from stupid stuff," He lightly kicked Brock's calf. "I'll tell you all the stories one day."

Brock wanted to push a little further, wanted to make sure that Clay was telling the truth but instead he just nodded a little and followed Clay to the range. 

* * *

A few weeks later, Brock ended up on Clay's bed after a long day running drills, as Clay traces that line on his ankle. 

And as it turns out, he was telling the truth - he truly believed that there was no deep, dark secret behind his scars. 

The one on his ankle?

"I slipped wading into a river in Liberia," Clay explains. "I was trying to catch something for dinner and and I just slipped." Brock winces, imagining that pain. "Hurt like a bitch, left a huge bruise and this thing."

Brock trails his finger up from the scar to another one on the side of Clay's leg. "What about this one?" It's small and circular, just on the surface of the skin. 

"Hmm," Clay hums, thinking. "Bug bite," he says. "They used to eat me alive when I was a kid. Scratched it until it bled, and then I picked the scab."

"Should be more carful," Brock says, pushing on it gently. "Shouldn't pick bites like that."

"But they're so itchy..."

A small crater on his shin. "I fell running home and got a rock stuck there."

A spot on his calf. "Stray dog bit me."

A cut on his knee. "Tree climbing."

An ident on his calf. "Swimming."

Brock frowns. "Swimming?"

"Oh yeah," Clay nods. "I swam a lot with my friend when I was younger, before I moved back to the States." He traces the scar. "If you wanted anything worthwhile you had to free dive to the bottom and coral can be sharp. And then dirt got in it and it got all all infected..," Clay fake gags. "It was gross"

"Sounds it," Brock mutters. "I didn't think you swam unless ordered."

"Bout true. Swimming was something I had to do but not something I guess I really wanted to do."

That makes Brock laugh. "Okay that sounds more like you, you little shit." He moves to Clay's other knee. "What about this one?"

Clay looks at it - it's a cut along the outside of his knee. Then he smiles. "So, my mom had this table with killer edges." He tries to make the angle with his hands. "I used to run circles around it, which is a terrible idea." He gestures back to the scar. "I got cut, and -" he turns his head and lifts a part of his hair, "-split my head open on it."

"Jeezus babe." Brock says, reaching out to see for himself. Sure enough, underneath the bond fluff, there's a scar where stitches would have been. "Did they get ride of the table?"

"Nope."

They make their way across Clay's body -

A cut across his abs from when he feel from a tree, 

Shiny splotches on his back from a bad rug burn,

Burns all over his hands and arms from failed cooking attempts. 

In the end, it's one of the most intimate things Brock's ever done, he realizes. Tracing a mark on Clay's forearm from when an ejected casing landed wrong and broke skin. He's seeing some much about Clay, about his life. So many stories, moments, physical proof of a life far before he'd joined Bravo and met Brock.

Brock brings Clay's arms to his lips and brushes a kiss against the mark. Clay visibly brightens before pulling his arm back, Brock with it, and kissing him properly on the lips. 

"What about you?" Clays asks, arms winding around the taller man's neck. "Anything you want to share with the class?"

Brock draws back, thinking for a moment. He looks down at his legs, traces from ankle to knee. Then starts on his shin. 

"Lacrosse," he explains simply. He moves to his other calf. "Lacrosse" A large cut going up that shin. "Got caught on a table edge."

Clay smirks, "Damn those tables."

Twin marks on his knees. "Rollerblading without knee pads."

Brock brushes a dark spot just below his knee. "Hair missile nicked me during a training exercise."

"Hard enough that it leaves a scar?"

"Happens sometimes," Brock admits. "Sometimes I feel like it helps us bond. A reminder. They know that I will bleed for them, they'll give their everything to me" He shrugs. "I know it's not true, but it still makes me feel better."

He looks back at Clay and Clay's grinning at him. 

"Don't laugh at me."

"I'm not!" Clay snickers. "You're just a big softy."

Brock feels the blood rush to his ears, but he moves on. He's getting to the bottom of his shorts, and he's about to tug them up when he remembers what's beneath them. He pauses, holding his breath, and glances at Clay. His eyes are trained on Brock's hands. Brock pulls the shorts up. 

An array of neat, narrow lines on his upper thighs. He looks back to Clay, for some sort of reaction. Clay looks at the scars, and then back up at Brock with those big, understanding blue eyes. 

"It's okay," he says gently. "We don't have to talk about them."

Brock doesn't say it out loud but he thanks Clay, before moving onto his chest and arms. "Through and through from an op in Belize, shrapnel from a helo crash." Moving onto his elbows, "More table edges."

Clay laughs, "Think we should baby proof the apartment or just wait to see how much more damage we can make?"

That makes Brock laugh as he flops on the bed to look at the ceiling and gesture towards his forehead. "Split it open on a table."

Clay pushes Brock back and unceremoniously climbs into his lap. "Those damn tables."

He can feel Clay brush a wet peck on the mark - a kiss - which makes Brock smile wider.

When he pulls away, he keeps Brock's face in his hands, thumbs stroking his cheeks. 

"I love you," Clay says gently. "All of you."

Butterflies swarm in Brock's stomach, "I love you too, Sunshine."

Clay's thumb stops, and he presses down n Brock's face. "What's this, here?"

Brock frowns and lifts a hand to feel. 

"That a zit, you little shit- "


End file.
